As sales increase and music continues to become more popular, my concern about the misuse and abuse of licensing terms is growing rapidly.

Our music is now being used everywhere: In major motion pictures, world class commercials and television, corporate videos, websites, youtube, vimeo and beyond.

As the popularity of AJ has skyrocketed, so has my concern about illegitimate use of music. I am not just seeing it online – I am starting to see it on TV too.

Personally, my production company is considering hiring an agency to monitor the use of music. The current system of non-disclosing customer information however makes this completely impossible. Not only do we not have the names of companies or uses, we don’t even know the country that our music is being used in – we are totally and completely blind.

Now, I would not be bringing this up unless I thought it an extremely serious matter and this is not a post on Wa**z sites, so I kindly ask moderators that you do not categorize it as such to lock the post.

My question to you AudioJungle, is if you will not release sufficient information for authors to monitor proper use of their music, will you be taking on the responsibility of doing this with genuine effort? If not, while you are of course not misusing the work yourself, I believe you are becoming indirectly liable for currently enforcing such a poor policy.

In the real word of professional audio, it is normal for music supervisors, producers, broadcasters etc. to have to not only give credit where credit us due, but disclose this type of information. Many countries like Germany require it. Outside of AudioJungle, its treacherous for a composer to not know where their music is being used.

Will AudioJungle become a truly professional music production entity in the years to come? Or will it continue to straddle multiple legal grey areas until some horrific legal action arises? We’re not just selling music for flash games anymore, and we need to step up the policies that protect authors and our music.

So what am I asking for?

I am not asking for personal customer information, however, I am asking for a new system that will incorporate song use and country. When a buyer purchases a song, having two simple fields “use” and “country of use” should be filled out and this info should be sent along to the author’s sales history beside each purchase. I am not looking to hassle buyers, or have their email addresses – but we need SOMETHING.

Before the comments come about us deciding to join AJ and we knew what we were getting into: It was one thing to join the site and work with the current day system, but it’s a different thing to be around for years, watch the sales boom, contribute thousands and thousands of dollars via music sales to AudioJungle, yet watch the handling of legal matters, the protections of author rights and the licensing structure stay exactly the same as it was when you started.

Of course, this is strictly my opinion, however I believe we are (even if indirectly) currently being withed the right to protect our work.

Thanks for reading, and I truly hope your are watching as well AJ staff.

+1
I’ve felt this way for a while now. If you randomly come across your music somewhere there is no way in the world to tell if they bought it or stole it. You think it’s just one of the many licenses you sell. We give badges out for stopping copyright violations but how are you supposed to tell? Also, it would really be helpful to know what percentages come from web videos, how much from flash games, etc. to help us focus on what sells.

Tim is completely right and i agree with him!
As we don’t have any traces of licenses usage, maybe there could be an abuse of the regular license used instead of an extended one… I said “maybe”, and that’s a part of the problem too.
No traces means no security for us authors to be sure that our music is not violated.
Anyway, this is a major situation and it needs to be clearer.

Thanks Tim for your considerations and for your suggestion how to solve this problem.
I think it’s a great idea to reveal us the information “country of use” and “use”.

If a customer has to fill this out (which will take him 5 seconds only) he will also be reminded that it does matter what it’s been used for (regarding extended /standard license) and also that it’s not a license for multiple projects. I can’t imagine that this would have negative effects on the sales volume in any way.

Of course this would not solve all our problems and if somebody wants to misuse a license he can still do it, but it would surely help pretty much already. IMHO this is an important advantage for authors and for Envato too.

This is a good idea! I’d like to know where my licenses go to both monitor misuses and add them to my showreels that I use with new postproduction companies I work with.
Do you have any idea of what is the average buyer on AJ? I know I sold many licenses for youtube channels presentations and introductions, and something for acting/cinema schools where are studying some friends of mine, but I really don’t know if some big company purchased something mine, and it would be wonderful to know it!